For the first time, the festival includes Sunday, adding more than a dozen extra plays, puppet shows and musical performances to the mix, which features 92 shows over six days starting Tuesday, May 30.

Festival coordinator Stephen Bourdeau says organizers listened to the public, who clamoured for extra shows to accommodate the schedules of busy families. Also, the festival has created a new smart phone app, called Your Passport to Adventure, which guides festival goers through diverse main stage acts, as well as an array of on-site highlights and a special Toddler Town for those too little to sit still for long.

“I love telling people what I do,” says Bourdeau of his role as a metaphorical juggler of fun for the festival.

He says as soon as people learn he runs the festival, thriving for more than 35 years in St. Albert, they can’t wait to talk about their childhood encounters with art.

“Everybody has a story, like ‘I remember going as a kid and that’s where I fell in love with painting,’ or ‘to this day, I go to the theatre.’

“And it’s multigenerational. For myself, I experienced it when I was young, and now I am taking my own kids to it as well.”

Boudreau, who grew up in St. Albert, is particularly excited about one of the shows, The Man Who Planted Trees, presented by Scotland’s Puppet State Theatre Company. A multi-sensory experience, it tells the story of a French shepherd and his best friend, Dog, who set out to transform a barren wasteland into green retreat.

“The troupe go the extra mile and have scents pumped into the theatre, such as lavender and other smells based on the scene,” he says. “It’s a surround-sound experience, with birds chirping behind you. That sensory piece makes it stand out.”

He also looks forward to the premiere of Niniimi’iwe (prounounced knee-knee-me-way), created by Winnipeg’s Aboriginal School of Dance, which explores Native American culture through music, motion and traditional creation stories. The school’s founder and owner, Buffy Handel, says Niniimi’iwe is special because it was the first dance she developed for the troupe in 2008. The original cast of Niniimi’iwe, who were as young as six and seven at the time, are now coming together as teenagers again to perform the dance in Edmonton.

Winnipeg’s Aboriginal School of Dance is appearing at the St. Albert International Children’s Festival starting May 30, 2017.supplied /
Postmedia

Niniimi’iwe incorporates not just aboriginal choreography, but the dance moves of other cultures, including Brazil’s samba style.

“The concept of equality of different nationalities is about being able to relate to the other cultures, and rely on the similarities and not the differences,” says Handel. “The best way of doing is by going to the place where people are in a time of celebration, through music and dance.”

The dance includes features as varied as a giant butterfly and a buffalo hunt, and is gorgeously appointed with hand-made traditional aboriginal regalia, set off with fluorescents and black lights.

As an internationally sanctioned attraction, the festival must offer a certain percentage of non-Canadian programming. This year, four out of eight shows are from outside our borders, including two from the U.S., and one from Korea. The festival is the largest in Canada, and one of the biggest in North America, attracting between 50,000 and 60,000 attendees. Some 15,000 school children come from northern Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan.

“A lot of smaller communities don’t have arts programming in their schools. We have students from Onion Lake who get up at 2 a.m. to drive six hours and then cram it all into a day or two.

“A lot of people associate children’s festival with face painting, but that’s just the surface of what we do. We inspire children by exposing them to the arts in a fun and entertaining way.”

Weekdays, the festival is geared toward school groups, although limited performance tickets are still available for individuals and families, so long as they book in advance at the festival’s five indoor theatre venues for shows such as Madagascar — A Musical Adventure, Moon Mouse: A Space Odyssey and BAM Percussion. A Festival Finale rounds off the programming Sunday with a line-up of favourites. The Outdoor Stage at St. Albert Place Plaza bursts with free activities such as an airbrush tattoo, a photo booth and roving artists.

St. Albert International Children’s Festival

Where: St. Albert Place, 5 St. Anne St., St. Albert

When: Tuesday, May 30 to Sunday, June 4, 2017

Tickets: Feature performance tickets are $13 each. For details, call the Arden Theatre box office at 780-459-1542, or visit ticketmaster.ca. Kids four and under can visit Shaw’s Toddler Town for $10, and adults accompanying them are free.

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